Media content such as image, text, audio and video data or any combination thereof can be delivered across communication networks and reproduced on user terminals including media players such as multimedia players.
Multi-media services provide various types of media content such as video, audio, image and text data. Multimedia players are devices that render combinations of video, audio or data content for consumption by users. The reproduction of the media content may be performed by visible display, audio sound etc. When different media content components are delivered to a user terminal in the form of multimedia, it is important to determine the reproduction timing and the display positions of the media content components for effective consumption and presentation.
MPEG-H part 1 standard (also known as MPEG Multimedia Transport or MMT) defines a complete solution for packaging, transport and composition of timed and non-timed media content, such as for example, image data, audio data, text data and the like. MMT is currently under development, with a draft standard described in “Text of ISO/IEC 2nd CD 23008-1 MPEG Media Transport, MPEG/N13293,” Geneva, Switzerland, January 2013 (hereinafter “MMT_CD”). While MMT primarily addresses IP networks, it also supports delivery of content over any type of packet-based networks. In particular, MMT may be used for delivery of audiovisual services over broadcast networks such as terrestrial, cable or satellite networks.
MMT-CI (where CI refers to compositional information) controls the temporal and spatial layout of the content of media data on a display. While MMT-CI offers the possibility for content providers to describe how media content is initially composed on the display and how the compositional arrangement can evolve in time, there is nothing to provide user personalization of the final rendering. An MMT terminal may allow a user to alter the display by “editing” the current versions of the HTML5 page and the CI elements. However, without proper constraints, such editing can quickly lead to disruption of the rendering of the media content. Moreover, if a content provider does not wish the final rendering of its media content to be modified by the user, MMT-CI does not offer possibilities to prevent unwanted modifications.
The present invention has been devised with the foregoing in mind.